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The Body Of Economic Knowledge Is An Essential Element In The Structure Of Human Civilization; It Is The Foundation Upon Which Modern Industrialism And All The Moral, Intellectual, Technological, And Therapeutical Achievements Of The Last Centuries Have Been Built.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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The Body Of Economic

Ludwig Von Mises

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The Body Of Economic Knowledge Is An Essential Element In The Structure Of Human Civilization; It Is The Foundation Upon Which Modern Industrialism And All The Moral, Intellectual, Technological, And Therapeutical Achievements Of The Last Centuries Have Been Built.

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Without Speculation There Can Be No Economic Activity Reaching Beyond The Immediate Present.

The Essence Of Democracy Is Not That Everyone Makes And Administers Laws But That Lawgivers And Rulers Should Be Dependent On The People's Will In Such A Way That They May Be Peaceably Changed If Conflict Occurs.

In Life Everything Is Continually In Flux.

For It Is An Essential Difference Between Capitalist And Socialist Production That Under Capitalism Men Provide For Themselves, While Under Socialism They Are Provided For.

To The Grumbler Who Complains About The Unfairness Of The Market System Only One Piece Of Advice Can Be Given: If You Want To Acquire Wealth, Then Try To Satisfy The Public By Offering Them Something That Is Cheaper Or Which They Like Better....equality Under The Law Gives You The Power To Challenge Every Millionaire.

Equality Under The Law

He Who Serves The Public Best, Makes The Highest Profits.

Society Is Only Possible On These Terms, That The Individual Finds Therein A Strengthening Of His Own Ego And His Own Will.

What Is Lacking To The Underdeveloped Nations Is Not Knowledge, But Capital.

The Wealth Of The Well-to-do Of An Industrial Society Is Both The Cause And Effect Of The Masses' Well-being.

Political Ideas That Have Dominated The Public Mind For Decades Cannot Be Refuted Through Rational Arguments. They Must Run Their Course In Life And Cannot Collapse Otherwise Than In Great Catastrophe.

Government Is A Guarantor Of Liberty And Is Compatible With Liberty Only If Its Range Is Adequately Restricted To The Preservation Of What Is Called Economic Freedom.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

The Situation Of Having To Belong To A State To Which One Does Not Wish Is No Less Onerous If It Is The Result Of An Election Than If One Must Endure It As The Consequence Of A Military Conquest.

Government Policies Try To Prevent The Emergence Of Serious Unemployment By Credit Expansion, I.e., Inflation. The Outcome Was Rising Prices, Renewed Demands For Higher Wages And Reiterated Credit Expansion; In Short, Protracted Inflation.

In Order To Succeed In Business A Man Does Not Need A Degree From A School Of Business Administration. These Schools Train The Subalterns For Routine Jobs. They Certainly Do Not Train Entrepreneurs.

The Only Source From Which An Entrepreneurs Profits Stem Is His Ability To Anticipate Better Than Other People The Future Demand Of The Consumers.

The Market Steers The Capitalistic Economy. It Directs Each Individual's Activities Into Those Channels In Which He Best Serves The Wants Of His Fellow-men. The Market Alone Puts The Whole Social System Of Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production And Free Enterprise In Order And Provides It With Sense And Meaning.

Those Fighting For Free Enterprise And Free Competition Do Not Defend The Interests Of Those Rich Today. They Want A Free Hand Left To Unknown Men Who Will Be The Entrepreneurs Of Tomorrow.

Inflation Has Always Been An Important Resource Of Policies Of War And Revolution And Why We Also Find It In The Service Of Socialism.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

If The Government Objects To Monopoly Prices For New Inventions, It Should Stop Granting Patents.

The Idea Of Socialism Is At Once Grandiose And Simple. . .we May Say, In Fact, That It Is One Of The Most Ambitious Creations Of The Human Spirit, . . .so Magnificent, So Daring, That It Has Rightly Aroused The Greatest Admiration. If We Wish To Save The World From Barbarism We Have To Refute Socialism, But We Cannot Thrust It Carelessly Aside.

The Recurrence Of Periods Of Depression And Mass Unemployment Has Discredited Capitalism In The Opinion Of Injudicious People. Yet These Events Are Not The Outcome Of The Operation Of The Free Market. They Are On The Contrary The Result Of Well-intentioned But Ill-advised Government Interference With The Market.

Thoughts And Ideas Are Not Phantoms. They Are Real Things. Although Intangible And Immaterial, They Are Factors In Bringing About Changes In The Realm Of Tangible And Material Things.

No Private Enterprise Will Ever Fall Prey To Bureaucratic Methods Of Management If It Is Operated With The Sole Aim Of Making Profit.

The Market Economy Needs No Apologists And Propagandists. It Can Apply To Itself The Words Of Sir Christopher Wren's Epitaph In St. Paul's: 'if You Seek His Monument, Look Around.'

Liberty Is Meaningless If It Is Only The Liberty To Agree With Those In Power.

Credit Expansion Is The Governments' Foremost Tool In Their Struggle Against The Market Economy. In Their Hands It Is The Magic Wand Designed To Conjure Away The Scarcity Of Capital Goods, To Lower The Rate Of Interest Or To Abolish It Altogether, To Finance Lavish Government Spending, To Expropriate The Capitalists, To Contrive Everlasting Booms, And To Make Everybody Prosperous.

Keynes Did Not Teach Us How To Perform The Miracle Of Turning A Stone Into Bread, But The Not At All Miraculous Procedure Of Eating The Seed Corn.

There Is No Means Of Avoiding The Final Collapse Of A Boom Brought About By Credit Expansion. The Alternative Is Only Whether The Crisis Should Come Sooner As The Result Of Voluntary Abandonment Of Further Credit Expansion, Or Later As A Final And Total Catastrophe Of The Currency System Involved.

Profits Are The Driving Force Of The Market Economy. The Greater The Profits, The Better The Needs Of The Consumers Are Supplied... He Who Serves The Public Best, Makes The Highest Profits.

A Nation Cannot Prosper If Its Members Are Not Fully Aware Of The Fact That What Alone Can Improve Their Condition S Is More And Better Production. And This Can Only Be Brought About By Increased Saving And Capital Accumulation.

Socialism Is Not An Alternative To Capitalism; It Is An Alternative To Any System Under Which Men Can Live As Human Beings.

Under The Gold Standard Gold Is Money And Money Is Gold. It Is Immaterial Whether Or Not The Laws Assign Legal Tender Quality Only To Gold Coins Minted By The Government.

The Foundation Of Any And Every Civilization, Including Our Own, Is Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production. Whoever Wishes To Criticize Modern Civilization, Therefore, Begins With Private Property.

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

The People Who Think That The Power Of Big Business Is Enormous Are Mistaken

The Mark Of The Creative Mind Is That It Defies A Part Of What It Has Learned.

Capitalists Have The Tendency To Move Toward Those Countries In Which There Is Plenty Of Labor Available And At Which Labor Is Reasonable. And By The Fact That They Bring Capital Into These Countries, They Bring About A Trend Toward Higher Wage Rates.

Inflation Is The True Opium Of The People And It Is Administered To Them By Anticapitalist Governments And Parties.

Lenin's Ideal Was To Build A Nation's Production Effort According To The Model Of The Post Office.

The State Can Be And Has Often Been In The Course Of History The Main Source Of Mischief And Disaster.

Without Calculation, Economic Activity Is Impossible. Since Under Socialism Economic Calculation Is Impossible, Under Socialism There Can Be No Economic Activity In Our Sense Of The Word All Economic Change, Therefore, Would Involve Operations The Value Of Which Could Neither Be Predicted Beforehand Nor Ascertained After They Had Taken Place. Everything Would Be A Leap In The Dark. Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

In Talking About Equality And Asking Vehemently For Its Realization, Nobody Advocates A Curtailment Of His Own Present Income.

Government And State Can Never Be Perfect Because They Owe Their Raison D'être To The Imperfection Of Man And Can Attain Their End, The Elimination Of Man's Innate Impulse To Violence, Only By Recourse To Violence, The Very Thing They Are Called Upon To Prevent.

Inflation Is An Increase In The Quantity Of Money Without A Corresponding Increase In The Demand For Money, I.e., For Cash Holdings.

The Luxury Of Today Is The Necessity Of Tomorrow. Every Advance First Comes Into Being As The Luxury Of A Few Rich People, Only To Become, After A Time, An Indispensable Necessity Taken For Granted By Everyone. Luxury Consumption Provides Industry With The Stimulus To Discover And Introduce New, Things. It Is One Of The Dynamic Factors In Our Economy. To It We Owe The Progressive Innovations By Which The Standard Of Living Of All Strata Of The Population Has Been Gradually Raised.

The Elimination Of Profit, Whatever Methods May Be Resorted To For Its Execution, Must Transform Society Into A Senseless Jumble. It Would Create Poverty For All.

It Is True That Some Secluded Intellectuals In Their Esoteric Circles Talk Differently. They Proclaim The Priority Of What They Call Eternal Absolute Values And Feign In Their Declamations—not In Their Personal Conduct—a Disdain Of Things Secular And Transitory. But The Public Ignores Such Utterances. The Main Goal Of Present-day Political Action Is To Secure For The Respective Pressure Group Memberships The Highest Material Well-being. The Only Way For A Leader To Succeed Is To Instill In People The Conviction That His Program Best Serves The Attainment Of This Goal.

Pressure Groups

To The Masses, The Catchwords Of Socialism Sound So Enticing... So They Will Continue To Work For Socialism, Helping Thereby To Bring About The Inevitable Decline Of The Civilization Which The Nations Of The West Have Taken Thousands Of Years To Build Up.

Do Not Give In To Evil, But Proceed Ever More Boldly Against It.

Reason's Biological Function Is To Preserve And Promote Life And To Postpone Its Extinction As Long As Possible. Thinking And Acting Are Not Contrary To Nature; They Are, Rather, The Foremost Features Of Man's Nature. The Most Appropriate Description Of Man As Differentiated From Nonhuman Beings Is: A Being Purposively Struggling Against The Forces Adverse To His Life.

In Reality No Food Is Valued Solely For Its Nutritive Power And No Garment Or House Solely For The Protection It Affords Against Cold Weather And Rain.... The Demand For Goods Is Widely Influenced By Metaphysical, Religious, And Ethical Considerations, By Aesthetic Value Judgments, By Customs, Habits, Prejudice, Tradition, Changing Fashions, And Many Other Things.

Fascism Was An Emergency Makeshift. To View It As Something More Would Be A Fatal Error.

What Pushes The Masses Into The Camp Of Socialism Is, Even More Than The Illusion That Socialism Will Make Them Richer, The Expectation That It Will Curb All Those Who Are Better Than They Themselves Are.

If People Do Not Consume Their Whole Incomes, The Non-consumed Surplus Can Be Invested, It Increases The Amount Of Capital Goods Available And Thereby Makes It Possible To Embark Upon Projects Which Could Not Be Executed Before.

German Marxian's Coined The Dictum: If Socialism Is Against Human Nature, Then Human Nature Must Be Changed.

The Most Serious Dangers For American Freedom And The American Way Of Life Do Not Come From Without.

The Democracy Of The Market Consists In The Fact That People Themselves Make Their Choices And That No Dictator Has The Power To Force Them To Submit To His Value Judgments.

If, As Is Generally The Case, The Heirs Are Not Equal To The Demands Which Life Makes On An Entrepreneur, The Inherited Wealth Rapidly Vanishes.

Action Based On Reason, Action Therefore Which Is Only To Be Understood By Reason, Knows Only One End, The Greatest Pleasure Of The Acting Individual.

He Who Is Unfit To Serve His Fellow Citizens Wants To Rule Them.

A Free Press Can Only Exist Where There Is Private Control Over The Means Of Production

The Government And Its Chiefs Do Not Have The Powers Of The Mythical Santa Claus. They Cannot Spend Except By Taking Out Of The Pockets Of Some People For The Benefit Of Others.

The Criterion Of Truth Is That It Works Even If Nobody Is Prepared To Acknowledge It.

The Boom Produces Impoverishment. But Still More Disastrous Are Its Moral Ravages. It Makes People Despondent And Dispirited. The More Optimistic They Were Under The Illusory Prosperity Of The Boom, The Greater Is Their Despair And Their Feeling Of Frustration.

The Prerequisite For More Economic Equality In The World Is Industrialization. And This Is Possible Only Through Increased Capital Investment, Increased Capital Accumulation.

Industrialization

No Architect Is Held Responsible For The Behavior Of Those Who Inhabit The Structure He Designed.

During The 2300 Years Since Plato, Very Little Opposition Has Been Registered To His Ideas.

What Makes Small Business Develop Into Big Business Is Not Spending, But Saving And Capital Accumulation.

The Market Economy Is The Social System Of The Division Of Labor Under Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production. Everybody Acts On His Own Behalf; But Everybodys Actions Aim At The Satisfaction Of Other Peoples Needs As Well As At The Satisfaction Of His Own. Everybody In Acting Serves His Fellow Citizens.

Division Of Labor

History Does Not Provide Any Example Of Capital Accumulation Brought About By A Government. As Far As Governments Invested In The Construction Of Roads, Railroads, And Other Useful Public Works, The Capital Needed Was Provided By The Savings Of Individual Citizens And Borrowed By The Government.

What Is A Loophole? If The Law Does Not Punish A Definite Action Or Does Not Tax A Definite Thing, This Is Not A Loophole. It Is Simply The Law.

Credit Expansion Can Bring About A Temporary Boom. But Such A Fictitious Prosperity Must End In A General Depression Of Trade, A Slump.

In The Capitalist Society There Is A Place And Bread For All. Its Ability To Expand Provides Sustenance For Every Worker. Permanent Unemployment Is Not A Feature Of Free Capitalism.

You Call It A 'loophole' When The Government Still Allows You Some Freedom.

The First Thing A Genius Needs Is To Breath Free Air.

All Those Evils Which The [liberals] Interpret As Evidence Of The Failure Of Capitalism, Are The Necessary Outcome Of Interference With The Market.

As Soon As We Surrender The Principle That The State Should Not Interfere In Any Questions Touching On The Individuals Mode Of Life, We End By Regulating And Restricting The Latter Down To The Smallest Details.

In A Game There Are Winners And Losers. But A Business Deal Is Always Advantageous For Both Parties. If Both The Buyer And The Seller Were Not To Consider The Transaction As The Most Advantageous Action They Could Choose Under The Prevailing Conditions, They Would Not Enter Into The Deal.

In The World Of Reality, Life, And Human Action There Is No Such Thing As Interests Independent Of Ideas, Preceding Them Temporarily And Logically. What A Man Considers His Interest Is The Result Of His Ideas.

Nothing Is More Calculated To Make A Demagogue Popular Than A Constantly Reiterated Demand For Heavy Taxes On The Rich. Capital Levies And High Income Taxes On The Larger Incomes Are Extraordinarily Popular With The Masses, Who Do Not Have To Pay Them.

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

The Body Of Economic Knowledge Is An Essential Element In The Structure Of Human Civilization; It Is The Foundation Upon Which Modern Industrialism And All The Moral, Intellectual, Technological, And Therapeutical Achievements Of The Last Centuries Have Been Built.

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

Used To The Conditions Of A Capitalistic Environment, The Average American Takes It For Granted That Every Year Business Makes Something New And Better Accessible To Him. Looking Backward Upon The Years Of His Own Life, He Realizes That Many Implements That Were Totally Unknown In The Days Of His Youth And Many Others Which At That Time Could Be Enjoyed Only By A Small Minority Are Now Standard Equipment Of Almost Every Household.

Inflationism, However, Is Not An Isolated Phenomenon. It Is Only One Piece In The Total Framework Of Politico-economic And Socio-philosophical Ideas Of Our Time. Just As The Sound Money Policy Of Gold Standard Advocates Went Hand In Hand With Liberalism, Free Trade, Capitalism And Peace, So Is Inflationism Part And Parcel Of Imperialism, Militarism, Protectionism, Statism And Socialism.

The Government Pretends To Be Endowed With The Mystical Power To Accord Favors Out Of An Inexhaustible Horn Of Plenty. It Is Both Omniscient And Omnipotent. It Can By A Magic Wand Create Happiness And Abundance. The Truth Is The Government Cannot Give If It Does Not Take From Somebody.

Resentment Is At Work When One So Hates Somebody For His More Favorable Circumstances That One Is Prepared To Bear Heavy Losses If Only The Hated One Might Also Come To Harm. Many Of Those Who Attack Capitalism Know Very Well That Their Situation Under Any Other Economic System Will Be Less Favorable.

An Anti-something Movement Displays A Purely Negative Attitude. It Has No Chance Whatever To Succeed. Its Passionate Diatribes Virtually Advertise The Program They Attack. People Must Fight For Something That They Want To Achieve, Not Simply Reject An Evil, However Bad It May Be.

Men Are Fighting One Another Because They Are Convinced That The Extermination And Liquidation Of Adversaries Is The Only Means Of Promoting Their Own Well-being.

The Productivity Of Social Cooperation Surpasses In Every Respect The Sum Total Of The Production Of Isolated Individuals.

Violent Resistance Against The Power Of The State Is The Last Resort Of The Minority In Its Effort To Break Loose From The Oppression Of The Majority. ... The Citizen Must Not Be So Narrowly Circumscribed In His Activities That, If He Thinks Differently From Those In Power, His Only Choice Is Either To Perish Or To Destroy The Machinery Of State.

Government Is The Only Institution That Can Take A Valuable Commodity Like Paper, And Make It Worthless By Applying Ink.

Every Man Aims At Avoiding What Causes Him Pain; The Activities Of Government Ultimately Consist In The Infliction Of Pain. All Great Achievements Of Mankind Were The Product Of A Spontaneous Effort On The Part Of Individuals; Government Substitutes Coercion For Voluntary Action.

You Know That The Population Is Of This Planet Is Now Ten Times Greater Than It Was In The Ages Preceding Capitalism.; You Know That All Men Today Enjoy A Higher Standard Of Living Than Your Ancestors Did Before The Age Of Capitalism. But How Do You Know That You Are The One Out Of Ten Who Would Have Lived In The Absence Of Capitalism? The Mere Fact That You Are Living Today Is Proof That Capitalism Has Succeeded, Whether Or Not You Consider Your Own Life Very Valuable.

No People And No Part Of A People Shall Be Held Against Its Will In A Political Association That It Does Not Want.

Fortunes Cannot Grow; Someone Has To Increase Them.

Scientific Criticism Has No Nobler Task Than To Shatter False Beliefs.

Is Still Fulfilling Its Social Function In Supplying The Consumers With More, Better And Cheaper Goods.

The Word "capitalism" Expresses, For Our Age, The Sum Of All Evil. Even The Opponents Of Socialism Are Dominated By Socialist Ideas.

My Theories Explain, But Cannot Slow The Decline Of A Great Civilization. I Set Out To Be A Reformer, But Only Became The Historian Of Decline.

The Most Important Thing To Remember Is That Inflation Is Not An Act Of God, That Inflation Is Not A Catastrophe Of The Elements Or A Disease That Comes Like The Plague. Inflation Is A Policy.

We Must Fight All That We Dislike In Public Life. We Must Substitute Better Ideas For Wrong Ideas.

Only One Thing Can Conquer War-that Attitude Of Mind Which Can See Nothing In War But Destruction And Annihilation.

Progress Of Any Kind Is Always At Variance With The Old And Established Ideas And Therefore With The Codes Inspired By Them. Every Step Of Progress Is A Change Involving Heavy Risks.

The Flowering Of Human Society Depends On Two Factors: The Intellectual Power Of Outstanding Men To Conceive Sound Social And Economic Theories, And The Ability Of These Or Other Men To Make These Ideologies Palatable To The Majority.

Some Think That They Will Exercise Power For The General Good, But That Is What All Those With Power Have Believed. Power Is Evil In Itself, Regardless Of Who Exercises It.

The Capitalist System Of Production Is An Economic Democracy In Which Every Penny Gives A Right To Vote. The Consumers Are The Sovereign People. The Capitalists, The Entrepreneurs, And The Farmers Are The People's Mandatories. If They Do Not Obey, If They Fail To Produce, At The Lowest Possible Cost, What

Public Opinion Takes No Offense At The Endeavors Of Farmers, Workers, Clerks, Teachers, Doctors, Ministers, And People From Many Other Callings To Earn As Much As They Can. But It Censures The Capitalists And Entrepreneurs For Their Greed.

War Is Harmful, Not Only To The Conquered But To The Conqueror. Society Has Arisen Out Of The Works Of Peace; The Essence Of Society Is Peacemaking. Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things. Only Economic Action Has Created The Wealth Around Us; Labor, Not The Profession Of Arms, Brings Happiness. Peace Builds, War Destroys.

The Welfare State Is Merely A Method For Transforming The Market Economy Step By Step Into Socialism.

All The Talk About The So-called Unspeakable Horror Of Early Capitalism Can Be Refuted By A Single Statistic: Precisely In These Years In Which British Capitalism Developed, Precisely In The Age Called The Industrial Revolution In England, In The Years From 1760 To 1830, Precisely In Those Years The Population Of England Doubled.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

Each Epoch Has Found In The Gospels What It Sought To Find There, And Has Overlooked What It Wished To Overlook.

The Policies Advocated By The Welfare School Remove The Incentive To Saving On The Part Of Private Citizens.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

Many Who Are Self-taught Far Excel The Doctors, Masters, And Bachelors Of The Most Renowned Universities.

A Wealthy Man Can Preserve His Wealth Only By Continuing To Serve The Consumers In The Most Efficient Way.

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People.

War Can Really Cause No Economic Boom, At Least Not Directly, Since An Increase In Wealth Never Does Result From Destruction Of Goods.

The Law-abiding Citizen By His Labor Serves Both Himself And His Fellow Man And Thereby Integrates Himself Peacefully Into The Social Order. The Robber, On The Other Hand, Is Intent, Not On Honest Toil, But On The Forcible Appropriation Of The Fruits Of Others' Labor.

If It Is Unnecessary To Adjust The Amount Of Expenditure To The Means Available, There Is No Limit To The Spending Of The Great God State.

Nobody Is In A Position To Decree What Should Make A Fellow Man Happier.

[t]he Essence Of So-called War Prosperity: It Enriches Some By What It Takes From Others. It Is Not Rising Wealth But A Shifting Of Wealth And Income.

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

In The Socialist Commonwealth Every Economic Change Becomes An Undertaking Whose Success Can Be Neither Appraised In Advance Nor Later Retrospectively Determined. There Is Only Groping In The Dark. Socialism Is The Abolition Of Rational Economy.

While Under Precapitalistic Conditions Superior Men Were The Masters On Whom The Masses Of The Inferior Had To Attend, Under Capitalism The More Gifted And More Able Have No Means To Profit From Their Superiority Other Than To Serve To The Best Of Their Abilities The Wishes Of The Majority Of The Less Gifted.

Spontaneous Actions Of Individuals, Aiming At Nothing Else Than At The Improvement Of Their Own State Of Satisfaction, Undermined The Prestige Of The Coercive Status System Step By Step.

It Is Not The Fault Of The Entrepreneurs That The Consumers,the People, The Common Man,prefer Liquor To Bibles And Detective Stories To Serious Books, And That Governments Prefer Guns To Butter. The Entrepreneur Does Not Make Greater Profits In Selling Bad Things Than In Selling Good Things. His Profits Are The Greater The Better He Succeeds In Providing The Consumers With Those Things They Ask For Most Intensely.

One Day, Because They Realize For Some Reason Or Other That They Must Stop Credit Expansion, The Banks Do Stop Creating New Credit To Lend. Then The Firms That Have Expanded Cannot Get Credit To Pay For The Factors Of Production Necessary For The Completion Of The Investment Projects Which They Have Already Committed Themselves. Because They Cannot Pay Their Bills, They Sell Off Their Inventories Cheap. Then Comes The Panic, The Breakdown. And The Depression Starts.

Perhaps There Are Somewhere In The Infinite Universe Beings Whose Minds Outrank Our Minds To The Same Extent As Our Minds Surpass Those Of The Insects. Perhaps There Will Once Somewhere Live Beings Who Will Look Upon Us With The Same Condescension As We Look Upon Amoebae.

It Is Solely Bigness In Business Which Makes It Possible To Supply The Masses With All Those Products The Present-day American Common Man Does Not Want To Do Without. Luxury Goods For The Few Can Be Produced In Small Shops. Luxury Goods For The Many Require Big Business.

Sovereignty Must Not Be Used For Inflicting Harm On Anyone, Whether Citizen Or Foreigner.

It Is The Rule Of Law Alone Which Hinders The Rulers From Turning Themselves Into The Worst Gangsters.

This Is The Difference Between Slavery And Freedom. The Slave Must Do What His Superior Orders Him To Do, But The Free Citizen-and This Is What Freedom Means-is In A Position To Choose His Own Way Of Life.

Only To Bureaucrats Can The Idea Occur That Establishing New Offices, Promulgating New Decrees, And Increasing The Number Of Government Employees Alone Can Be Described As Positive And Beneficial Measures.

History Makes One Wise, But Not Competent To Solve Concrete Problems.

All Varieties Of Interference With The Market Phenomena Not Only Fail To Achieve The Ends Aimed At By Their Authors And Supporters, But Bring About A State Of Affairs Which - From The Point Of View Of Their Authors And Advocates Valuations - Is Less Desirable Than The Previous State Of Affairs Which They Were Designed To Alter.

It Is Indeed One Of The Principal Drawbacks Of Every Kind Of Interventionism That It Is So Difficult To Reverse The Process.

Education Rears Disciples, Imitators, And Routinists, Not Pioneers Of New Ideas And Creative Geniuses. The Schools Are Not Nurseries Of Progress And Improvement, But Conservatories Of Tradition And Unvarying Modes Of Thought.

It Is The Worst Of All Superstitions To Assume That The Epistemological Characteristics Of One Branch Of Knowledge Must Necessarily Be Applicable To Any Other Branch.

This, Then, Is Freedom In The External Life Of Man-that He Is Independent Of The Arbitrary Power Of His Fellows.

The Philosophy Commonly Called Individualism Is A Philosophy Of Social Cooperation And The Progressive Intensification Of The Social Nexus.

Servile Labour Disappeared Because It Could Not Stand The Competition Of Free Labour; Its Un-profitability Sealed Its Doom In The Market Economy.

Marx And Engels Openly Declared That The Progressive Income Tax And The Death Tax Are 'economically Untenable' And That They Advocated Them Only Because 'they Necessitate Further Inroads' Upon The Capitalist System And Are 'unavoidable' As A Means Of Bringing About Socialism.

Permanent Mass Unemployment Destroys The Moral Foundations Of The Social Order. The Young People, Who, Having Finished Their Training For Work, Are Forced To Remain Idle, Are The Ferment Out Of Which The Most Radical Political Movements Are Formed. In Their Ranks The Soldiers Of The Coming Revolutions Are Recruited.

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

The Riches Of Successful Entrepreneurs Is Not The Cause Of Anybody's Poverty; It Is The Consequence Of The Fact That The Consumers Are Better Supplied Than They Would Have Been In The Absence Of The Entrepreneur's Efforts.

In Spite Of The Anticapitalistic Policies Of All Governments And Of Almost All Political Parties, The Capitalist Mode Of Production

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People. But, Of Course, These Motorcars, Television Sets And Refrigerators Do Not Make A Man Happy. In The Instant In Which He Acquires Them, He May Feel Happier Than He Did Before. But As Soon As Some Of His Wishes Are Satisfied, New Wishes Spring Up. Such Is Human Nature.

Every Specific Tax, As Well As The Nation's Whole Tax System, Becomes Self-defeating Above A Certain Height Of The Rates.

The Gold Standard Makes The Money's Purchasing Power Independent Of The Changing, Ambitions And Doctrines Of Political Parties And Pressure Groups. This Is Not A Defect Of The Gold Standard; It Is Its Main Excellence.

State Interference In Economic Life, Which Calls Itself Economic Policy, Has Done Nothing But Destroy Economic Life. Prohibitions And Regulations Have By Their General Obstructive Tendency Fostered The Growth Of The Spirit Of Wastefulness.

All People, However Fanatical They May Be In Their Zeal To Disparage And To Fight Capitalism, Implicitly Pay Homage To It By Passionately Clamoring For The Products It Turns Out

If Some Peoples Pretend That History Or Geography Gives Them The Right To Subjugate Other Races, Nations, Or Peoples, There Can Be No Peace.

It Is Vain To Fight Totalitarianism By Adopting Totalitarian Methods. Freedom Can Only Be Won By Men Unconditionally Committed To The Principles Of Freedom. The First Requisite For A Better Social Order Is The Return To Unrestricted Freedom Of Thought And Speech.

Economic Control Is Not Merely Control Of A Sector Of Human Life That Can Be Separated From The Rest; It Is The Control Of The Means For All Our Ends.

Where Nietzsche's Response To The Equation Of Socialism And Morality Was To Question The Value Of Morality, At Least As It Had Been Customarily Understood, Economists Like Mises And Hayek Pursued A Different Path, One Nietzsche Would Never Have Dared To Take: They Made The Market The Very Expression Of Morality.

The Champions Of Socialism Call Themselves Progressives, But They Recommend A System Which Is Characterized By Rigid Observance Of Routine And By A Resistance To Every Kind Of Improvement. They Call Themselves Liberals, But They Are Intent Upon Abolishing Liberty. They Call Themselves Democrats, But They Yearn For Dictatorship. They Call Themselves Revolutionaries, But They Want To Make The Government Omnipotent. They Promise The Blessings Of The Garden Of Eden, But They Plan To Transform The World Into A Gigantic Post Office. Every Man But One A Subordinate Clerk In A Bureau.

The Common Man Is The Sovereign Consumer Whose Buying Or Abstention From Buying Ultimately Determines What Should Be Produced And In What Quantity And Quality.

Rulers Do Not Like To Admit That Their Power Is Restricted By Any Laws Other Than Those Of Physics And Biology. They Never Ascribe Their Failures And Frustrations To The Violation Of Economic Law.

Economic Prosperity Is Not So Much A Material Problem; It Is, First Of All, An Intellectual, Spiritual, And Moral Problem.

Spiritual Movements Are Revolts Of Thought Against Inertia, Of The Few Against The Many; Of Those Who Because They Are Strong In Spirit Are Strongest Alone Against Those Who Can Express Themselves Only In The Mass And The Mob, And Who Are Significant Only Because They Are Numerous.

There Is No Other Planning For Freedom And General Welfare Than To Let The Market System Work.

General Welfare

The Root Of The Evil Is Not The Construction Of New, More Dreadful Weapons. It Is The Spirit Of Conquest.

Value Is Not Intrinsic, It Is Not In Things. It Is Within Us; It Is The Way In Which Man Reacts To The Conditions Of His Environment. Neither Is Value In Words And Doctrines, It Is Reflected In Human Conduct. It Is Not What A Man Or Groups Of Men Say About Value That Counts, But How They Act.

We Owe The Origin And Development Of Human Society And, Consequently, Of Culture And Civilization, To The Fact That Work Performed Under The Division Of Labor Is More Productive Than When Performed In Isolation.

Division Of Labor

Almost All The Fathers Of Socialism Were Members Of The Upper Middle Class Or Of The Professions.

Some Experts Have Declared That It Is Necessary To Tax The People Until It Hurts. I Disagree With These Sadists.

People Must Learn That The Accumulation Of Wealth By The Successful Conduct Of Business Is The Corollary Of The Improvement Of Their Own Standard Of Living And Vice Versa. They Must Realize That Bigness In Business Is Not An Evil, But Both The Cause And Effect Of The Fact That They Themselves Enjoy All Those Amenities Whose Enjoyment Is Called The “american Way Of Life.

Government Means Always Coercion And Compulsion And Is By Necessity The Opposite Of Liberty. Government Is A Guarantor Of Liberty And Is Compatible With Liberty Only If Its Range Is Adequately Restricted To The Preservation Of Economic Freedom. Where There Is No Market Economy, The Best-intentioned Provisions Of Constitutions And Laws Remain A Dead Letter.

Civilization Is A Work Of Peaceful Co-operation.

Nothing, However, Is As Ill Founded As The Assertion Of The Alleged Equality Of All Members Of The Human Race.

Every Collectivist Assumes A Different Source For The Collective Will, According To His Own Political, Religious And National Convictions.

Reason And Action Are Congeneric And Homogenous, Two Aspects Of The Same Phenomenon.

The Goal Of Liberalism Is The Peaceful Cooperation Of All Men. It Aims At Peace Among Nations Too. When There Is Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production Everywhere And When Laws, The Tribunals And The Administration Treat Foreigners And Citizens On Equal Terms, It Is Of Little Importance Where A Country's Frontiers Are Drawn... War No Longer Pays; There Is No Motive For Aggression... All Nations Can Coexist Peacefully.

If The Present Tax Rates Had Been In Effect From The Beginning Of Our Century, Many Who Are Millionaires Today Would Live Under More Modest Circumstances. But All Those New Branches Of Industry Which Supply The Masses With Articles Unheard Of Before, Would Operate, If At All, On A Much Smaller Scale, And Their Products Would Be Beyond The Reach Of The Common Man.

In All Countries With A Settled Bureaucracy People Used To Say: The Cabinets Come And Go, But The Bureaus Remain.

What Is Called Economic Progress Is The Joint Effect Of The Activities Of The Three Progressive Groups-or Classes-of The Savers, The Scientist-inventors, And The Entrepreneurs, Operating In A Market Economy As Far As It Is Not Sabotaged By The Endeavors Of The Nonprogressive Majority Of The Routinists And The Public Policies Supported By Them.

Capitalism Needs Neither Propaganda Nor Apostles. Its Achievements Speak For Themselves. Capitalism Delivers The Goods.

Scientific Research Sooner Or Later, But Inevitably, Encounters Something Ultimately Given That It Cannot Trace Back To Something Else Of Which It Would Appear As The Regular Or Necessary Derivative. Scientific Progress Consists In Pushing Further Back This Ultimately Given.

There Are For Man Only Two Principles Available For A Mental Grasp Of Reality, Namely, Those Of Teleology And Causality. What Cannot Be Brought Under Either Of These Categories Is Absolutely Hidden To The Human Mind. An Event Not Open To An Interpretation By One Of These Two Principles Is For Man Inconceivable And Mysterious. Change Can Be Conceived As The Outcome Either Of The Operation Of Mechanistic Causality Or Of Purposeful Behavior; For The Human Mind There Is No Third Way Available.

There Is No Means By Which Anyone Can Evade His Personal Responsibility. Whoever Neglects To Examine To The Best Of His Abilities All The Problems Involved Voluntarily Surrenders His Birthright To A Selfappointed Elite Of Supermen. In Such Vital Matters Blind Reliance Upon 'experts' And Uncritical Acceptance Of Popular Catchwords And Prejudices Is Tantamount To The Abandonment Of Self-determination And To Yielding To Other People's Domination. As Conditions Are Today, Nothing Can Be More Important To Every Intelligent Man Than Economics. His Own Fate And That Of His Progeny Are At Stake.

Neither The Entrepreneurs Nor The Farmers Nor The Capitalists Determine What Has To Be Produced. The Consumers Do That.

The Unpopularity Of Economics Is The Result Of Its Analysis Of The Effects Of Privileges. It Is Impossible To Invalidate The Economists Demonstration That All Privileges Hurt The Interests Of The Rest Of The Nation Or At Least A Great Part Of It.

Whoever Wants Peace Among Nations Must Seek To Limit The State And Its Influence Most Strictly.

Welfare Policies Never Attain Those - Allegedly Beneficial - Ends Which The Government And The Self-styled Progressives Who Advocated Them Wanted To Attain, But - On The Contrary - Bring About A State Of Affairs Which - From The Very Point Of View Of The Government And Its Supporters - Is Even More Unsatisfactory Than The Previous State Of Affairs They Wanted To 'improve.'

In The Market Economy The Worker Sells His Services As Other People Sell Their Commodities. The Employer Is Not The Employee's Lord. He Is Simply The Buyer Of Services Which He Must Purchase At Their Market Price.

Behaviorism Proposes To Study Human Behavior According To The Methods Developed By Animal And Infant Psychology. It Seeks To Investigate Reflexes And Instincts, Automatisms And Unconscious Reactions. But It Has Told Us Nothing About The Reflexes That Have Built Cathedrals, Railroads, And Fortresses, The Instincts That Have Produced Philosophies, Poems, And Legal Systems, The Automatisms That Have Resulted In The Growth And Decline Of Empires, The Unconscious Reactions That Are Splitting Atoms.

Under Capitalism Everybody Provides For Their Own Needs By Serving Others.

Every Innovation Makes Its Appearance As A 'luxury' Of The Few Well-to-do. After Industry Has Become Aware Of It, The Luxury Then Becomes A 'necessity' For All.

One Has To Recognize That Science Is Not Metaphysics, And Certainly Not Mysticism; It Can Never Bring Us The Illumination And The Satisfaction Experienced By One Enraptured In Ecstasy. Science Is Sobriety And Clarity Of Conception, Not Intoxicated Vision.

The Worst Law Is Better Than Bureaucratic Tyranny.

Progress Is Precisely That Which Rules And Regulations Did Not Foresee.

Rules And Regulations

What Workers Must Learn Is That The Only Reason Why Wage Rates Are Higher In The United States Is That The Per Head Quota Of Capital Invested Is Higher.

A Famous, Very Often Quoted Phrase Says: "that Government Is Best, Which Governs Least." I Do Not Believe This To Be A Correct Description Of Of The Functions Of A Good Government. Government Ought To Do All The Things For Which It Is Needed And For Which It Is Established. Government Ought To Protect The Individuals Within The Country Against The Violent And Fraudulent Attacks Of Gangsters, And It Should Defend The Country Against Foreign Enemies. These Are The Functions Of Government Within A Free System, Within The System Of The Market Economy.

Do The American Voters Know That The Unprecedented Improvement In Their Standard Of Living That The Last Hundred Years Brought Was The Result Of The Steady Rise In The Per-head Quota Of Capital Invested? Do They Realize That Every Measure Leading To Capital Decumulation Jeopardizes Their Prosperity?

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Tahar Ben Jelloun

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